I was talking to someone today who reads this blog, and, among the praise (pat, pat), he mentioned that it seemed pessimistic. My first reaction was to say that it was more realistic than pessimistic, but now, in thinking about it, I wonder why I felt that way.
It's not that I feel this is the worst of all possible worlds, so I can't say that I'm a true philosophical pessimist (no Schopenhauer, I). More commonly, though, a pessimist is seen as someone who believes that things are getting worse. If that's true, then I probably am, and shouldn't shy away from the label.
But worse is relative. What I see in the future is the decline of the United States overall, a reduction in our standard of living, a lessening of the American Dream. This Dream is probably unrealistic, as it consists of a half-acre of land, a 3500 square foot house, and a whole bunch of stuff to fill it up. We can't go on hoping in up, up, up, when the rest of the world is catching up (often with our help). The world may be flat in the Tom Friedman sense, but that will inexorably lead to other flattening, so that we will all settle somewhere into a lower middle class. That's a step up for millions of people in China and India, not so much so here.
You see, I don't necessarily think the world is going to get worse. It's just that the king of the mountain isn't such a great title when the mountain is only a foot high. We may end up with a better world when all is said and done, but it still means big changes for the U.S.
I want us to be aware of those changes, to plan rationally for them. I want us to face the lifestyle changes that will come when the oil is gone. I want us to understand that this whole wasteful structure that we've built, where 5% of the world's population consumes 30% of the resources, is going to be flattened right out of existence.
We can plan for those things, be ready for the shocks ahead, or we can just listen to feel-good slogans about change or morning in America, and defer action until the changes come all at once. At which point I really will be pessimistic.
It's not that I feel this is the worst of all possible worlds, so I can't say that I'm a true philosophical pessimist (no Schopenhauer, I). More commonly, though, a pessimist is seen as someone who believes that things are getting worse. If that's true, then I probably am, and shouldn't shy away from the label.
But worse is relative. What I see in the future is the decline of the United States overall, a reduction in our standard of living, a lessening of the American Dream. This Dream is probably unrealistic, as it consists of a half-acre of land, a 3500 square foot house, and a whole bunch of stuff to fill it up. We can't go on hoping in up, up, up, when the rest of the world is catching up (often with our help). The world may be flat in the Tom Friedman sense, but that will inexorably lead to other flattening, so that we will all settle somewhere into a lower middle class. That's a step up for millions of people in China and India, not so much so here.
You see, I don't necessarily think the world is going to get worse. It's just that the king of the mountain isn't such a great title when the mountain is only a foot high. We may end up with a better world when all is said and done, but it still means big changes for the U.S.
I want us to be aware of those changes, to plan rationally for them. I want us to face the lifestyle changes that will come when the oil is gone. I want us to understand that this whole wasteful structure that we've built, where 5% of the world's population consumes 30% of the resources, is going to be flattened right out of existence.
We can plan for those things, be ready for the shocks ahead, or we can just listen to feel-good slogans about change or morning in America, and defer action until the changes come all at once. At which point I really will be pessimistic.
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